


In a Dark Place Where You Aren't

by Casjuice



Category: Supernatural
Genre: A fuck-tonne of non-consensual shit, Abused Castiel, Angry Sex, Angst, Body Horror, But not within the Dean/Castiel pairing, Castiel Whump, Castiel and Mental Health Issues, Castiel-centric, Heavy Angst, Human Castiel, Hurt and comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, NSFW, Nightmares, Not for the light of heart, One of the tags here might not actually be fulfilled at any point, Post-Episode: s09e03 I'm No Angel, Rape, Sexual Violence, Somewhat nihilistic, Starvation, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Vampire Turning, Whump, disturbing imagery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-19 12:21:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2388065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Casjuice/pseuds/Casjuice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Castiel was kicked out of the bunker, he was lost. It hurt him, blinded him, broke him.</p><p>So he didn't see the monsters hiding in the dark.</p><p>Not until it was too late.</p><p>((ON INDEFINITE HIATUS: i'm not so active in this fandom anymore and don't know when i'll next be in the mood to write this as I'm more in other fandoms now- sorry for everyone that was invested in this whoops i'm a horrible person))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Attack

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Thrown to the Dogs](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/76499) by ((me- from a couple years ago- this is a revised version that i will complete)). 



_“You can’t stay”_

The words had hit Castiel like a sledgehammer; they shattered, stung, burned and drained.

From comfort they had hurled him into rejection, hurt, confusion.

A confusion that lasted for days.

A kind of lost feeling that dragged him back and forth, that made him wander aimlessly away.

He stared down, eyes watching the pavement scroll past at its dull, grey empty crawl. 

His chest ached, bones hollow, blood icy; vision blurred with potential tears and throat covered in the grime of hundreds of pent up sobs. 

Blindly, painfully, directionless , he walked.

Perhaps, if he hadn’t let that hurtful phrase deafen him, he may have noticed that he was being followed.

But he didn’t.

So he didn’t.

Not until there was no way out.

The city was unfamiliar to Castiel, so he got lost quickly. Wandered into his cage. Blind as he was, senseless as he felt, it would have been a miracle not to. He couldn’t read the street signs or the store fronts for the tears in his eyes. So he got turned around, he got lost in the wrong part of town.

Wandering down a dark alleyway, Castiel had no idea where he was. He didn’t care where he was. 

Obviously Dean didn’t care.

Otherwise Castiel would still be by his side, warm and safe and happy in the bunker.

The three, cutting words played on repeat. Mercilessly they played. Over and over and over.

_“You can’t stay”_

Ahead of him, a dark wall. Behind him a voice. A snarl, filthy, low, a growl.

“Lost?”

The looping record cut out and Castiel jerked back into reality. He registered the wall in its sheerness and age. The dark and the cold of the autumn night. The ripe stench of the skips on either side mixing with cigarette butts littered on the wet ground.

He turned. The windows on the buildings beside him were broken, boarded up and vandalised. Free of life. Constricting, trapping. A series of crushing shadows that boarded his way out, the only light the weak glow of a gibbous moon caked in smog.

There was just enough there for Castiel to see the man in front of him. He was tall. Huge. Wide in the shoulder with matted, long hair. Big arms, a thick neck, unshaved, oily skin that reflected the moonlight in a greasy sheen. Close, only a couple feet away.

Danger.

“Hey pretty boy,” The man stepped closer, forcing Castiel to back into the wall. Castiel couldn’t make out his expression, he couldn’t read him as the night’s blindfold wrapped his eyes, but dear god he could smell him, “I was talking to you.” 

There was an animal instinct to run, but to where? And how? He had walls on three sides and this man, this man that stank of dirty sweat, alcohol and something… something almost like rotting meat on the other. Rusty and rancid. He was trapped in a box. A box that grew smaller as the giant stepped closer, leaned closer; he was too close. Far too close. 

Castiel’s skin, formerly so numb, was crawling.

“No I-“Castiel tried to sound resolute, but he found himself tripping over words, “I’m… I’m fine-“

The man laughed and Castiel gagged at the foul blast of his breath. He tried to make a move, but a log of an arm barred his escape, the man’s bulk inches away. Any distance Castiel had from the situation dissolved; he was right there and his heart was pounding with panic.

“You need some help finding your way home?” The gentleness of the voice made Castiel’s innards squirm. A hand met and locked on his shoulder like a vice. It took everything in him not to shrink back. He needed to stay in control. He needed to keep himself together."You don't even have one, do you?" 

The hand slid from his shoulder to Castiel’s throat, rough fingers slipping over chilled back of Castiel’s neck and through his hair. Castiel drew in breath slowly, trying to calm his shaking body and the sick churning of his guts, reaching slowly for his angel blade. Mere weeks ago, Castiel could have dealt with this predator without batting an eyelash; he could have thrown him aside with a flick of the wrist, taken his consciousness with a gentle touch on the forehead. But now? Now he was hollow, sucked dry, malnourished. Sickly from sleeping on the streets, shivering in the cold. He was _weak_.

He squeezed the hilt of the blade.

But not completely defenceless.

A filthy finger with a long, sharp nail scraped slowly over Castiel’s cheek, sending a wave of cold, nauseating goosebumps over his skin as the man leaned in, so close that his nose brushed Castiels.

“No-“ Castiel’s voice was steady in spite of the snakes that squirmed in his throat; he rose a hand to push the man off, moving to swing the blade. 

The hand on his neck slid over his windpipe before Castiel could budge, squeezing down to choke him. 

Shaky composure fell to raw panic.

“Shhh…” When Castiel tried to struggle, the man’s fist slammed into his stomach and the choking grip tightened, crushing his windpipe.

Castiel couldn’t breathe, lungs blazing from the absence of air; his stomach felt torn apart from the blow. He tried to swing his blade but the monster grabbed his hand, digging his sharp, almost claw-like fingernails into the flesh, threatening to break the bones underneath. Castiel's grip faltered 

His last chance hit the ground with a quiet clatter.

Castiel’s vision was filling with black spots.

“Please-“ The only word he could choke out, feeble and small. Barely more than a whisper.

The squeeze loosened and Castiel hacked and wheezed, gulping the air in as soon as his lungs would allow. But the man still had him pinned to the wall. 

“You stop your whining and I’ll make it worth your while or…” He pressed his lips to Castiel’s ear, his damp, thick breath oozing over his skin; it made bile rise in Castiel's throat. “You struggle and I slit your throat with that pretty little knife you tried pulling on me.”

Every instinct screamed at him to run, kick, scream- to grab the blade from the ground and plunge it into this monster’s stinking gut, but the man was immense and his grip far too tight. He was cornered. Helpless. Pathetic. 

And part of him was glad for it.

A beaten, dark corner that carried all his guilt, that sagged with his own undying disgust for the shit he’d done, for his failures; that part of him told him that he _deserved_ it. 

So when the man turned him around, twisting Castiel’s arms above his head with an iron grip, when he tugged down Castiel’s jeans, Castiel let him. He didn’t struggle, didn’t kick or cry or writhe.

He felt nausea spike in his throat when the man’s hand slid over his hip and down to his crotch, cupping it and pressing and _stroking_.

He closed his eyes. All he could do was pretend it wasn’t happening. 

He saw the bunker. He saw Sam, he saw Dean. He smelled the coffee they could be sipping together, he heard them arguing, then laughing, then just sitting. Saying nothing but feeling warm, comfortable and-

Pain

He couldn’t catch the scream before it tore out of him, tears filling his eyes but not falling. The hand clapped over his mouth. 

The second time hurt even more, searing and burning and ripping and tearing.

The man fucked into him again and again and again and again and _again._

He whined, the tears slipped. They flowed. He couldn’t stop them. 

It just hurt so much.

And the other feeling…

Amongst all the slicing and splitting, there was something else. When the man thrusted, he slammed into a ball of nerves deep inside that sent a strange heat through Castiel’s gut, that made it twist in a way that made him shiver. And the touching, the hand on his dick that pumped with the agonising thrusts. It all just made it worse. So much worse.

Castiel wanted to throw up.

No.

He wanted to _die_

Another pitiful whine.

Closing his eyes didn’t help, it didn’t numb the pain. Seeing the Winchesters only made it hurt more. Trying to imagine he was somewhere else, anywhere else… The crying turned into sobbing, staggered, broken and dry. The pain was uniform and constant, constantly unbearable, constantly agonising.

_I deserve this._

His stomach was inverting, the hurt blazing from his ass to the rest of him.

_for all the wrong I’ve done_

The force of the thrusting blackened his skin as the man sped up, sent deep cracks through his bones.

_I…_

The grip on his cock tightened and pumped, A thumb rubbing the tip, the palm squeezing the shaft. Again he whimpered, the sickening twists heating him up, weakening his knees. Shortening his breath, turning his sobs to pitiful sighs and pants. 

_I deserve…_

The man sped his fucking and jerked Castiel harder and faster, squeezing tighter rubbing rougher. There was panting behind him, laughing and moaning. And the pain. Still the pain. Blood and cum trickled down Castiel’s legs. 

_…all of this._

He screwed his eyes up as his vision went white, as for a second he drifted away.

He saw Dean.

He came crashing back down.

And oh what a crash it was.

Fingers raked through his hair and smashed his head into the bricks before yanking it aside, stretching out his neck. Castiel tried to cry out as his brain ricocheted off the sides of his skull; if he did make a sound he couldn’t hear it for the ringing in his ears. He was silenced, a tight grip, impossible tight crushing his jaw. 

_I deserve this._

Bricks swirled together, every fragment of light drowning into darkness. He wheezed through his broken, dangling jaw. Desperately trying to breathe. All it did was choke him more, blood drawn in instead of air. 

_I deserve this._

His head span… his brain being stirred and sloshed back and forth and sucked away. A stabbing in his neck. Draining. A final, spluttering gasp. 

_I deserve this._


	2. Captive

Nothing.

The slate is spotless.

Sky starless.

Air without wind.

Ears without a sound for them to catch.

Body depraved of sensation.

Castiel did not know where he was. He couldn’t see where, hear where, smell where, feel where or taste; all there was was the absence of anything. Though this is not entirely true, it is a generalisation. Concussion forces generalisation, fragmentation. There was perception, but it lacked clarity. It blurred in Castiel’s head that was only now beginning to pound.

A sound:

Whistling over hollow pounding.

A feeling:

Unease and cold leaning on eachother’s shoulders.

A sight:

Black drapes thrown over everything, objects, thoughts, senses. 

A smell:

Aged dust gathering in dim corners.

A taste:

Rust.

One by one the senses would return and gather, Castiel’s brain pegging them to spidery lines and drying them of the murky depths within which they had been soaking. This, perhaps, was not necessarily ideal.

For the senses could only perceive what is torturous to feel.

The first, under the droning, pulsing hurt that sat in his skull like lead, was allowed by swallowing silence. Each bodily groan and tic amplified astronomically by desperate ears. There was a pounding heartbeat, the deafening thunder of his blood through the ear drums, breath raking in and out in uneven, rattling contractions of the lungs and scrapings of the throat. Like some ancient machine close to breaking down, Castiel’s body whined and whirred.

Warmth dribbled from the corners of a dry mouth in the form of blood and spit. It slipped slowly, painfully; gathering in grazes and over bruises. It stung.

Other hurt was starting to leak in, it was everywhere. But most of it centred below the belt. 

It was like an insect biting at first, a twinge. But it grew. Oh how it grew. It bloomed into blunt razor blades scraping through his insides, then a rusted machete twisting and grating. It reached a crescendo as a hot poker.

The hurt drew out what was intended as a cry, a scream; but spluttering was all that Castiel could really muster up. A splutter that turned to choking as the blood thick in his mouth invaded his lungs, body convulsing as it tried to re-establish its ability to breathe. 

It was successful, eventually, but not before it triggered blow after blow of hurt in the jaw; Castiel couldn’t move it, it hung limp off the paled train wreck of his face. Snapped.

He tried to reach up to touch it, but leather held is hands back at the wrists. 

His ankles were the same.

_Where am I_

The first sound thought in a long stream of erratic ones, but ultimately the most important. 

The gears turned once again, a voice made an effort.

“Where am I?”

It was small, raw. The ‘w’ and ‘m’ lost in vocalisation.

The wordless quiet answered.

_Somewhere you do not want to be._

Somewhere.

Or maybe nowhere.

A specific nowhere.

Hell?

That would explain the void, the dark, the hurt. 

Castiel was in hell.

It made sense, after all. He had any number of reasons to be there; he deserved it more than most.

He’d lied, tortured, murdered. He’d committed what bordered on genocide.

And perhaps the worst, he’d made the angels fall.

An accident, but nobody cared about that; and Castiel felt guiltier and guiltier as time wore on. Newly acquired humanity allowed that- self hatred grows like a weed in the mortal shell. A noxious, thorny weed.

Castiel whined, the sound clawing out of his throat before dying on his lips; he tugged against the restraints, tried rocking his hollow, burning body against the dark.

Blood roared in his ears.

Breath echoed in tired lungs.

Hurt ticked in the back of closed eyes.

His wrists and ankles stung from struggling.

_You can’t stay_

Another cry, harsher than the last. It peeled from the tip of the lolling jaw, dripping out with the blood. The cry hit the cold ground and shattered like fine china, repeated a thousand times over in tiny shards, hushed sobs. He thrashed in the suffocating quiet.

“Help me,” He hated himself for saying it, for thinking it, it was pitiful, “Can anybody hear me?”

When the words slurred out, indistinct as those on soaked pages, Castiel could swear he heard something respond.

Not the silence this time, not a reply conjured by concussion. Something tangible in the dark place wrapped around him.

He forced open searing eyes, but the black still covered the world with its veil.

The gentle slide of a footstep stirred with the anticipation of a laugh.

“Hello?” 

The tiny sounds slunk in circles, disappearing and reappearing like sea monsters in the abyss, rising and falling from the lime-green glow of a torch. You knew they were there, but they wouldn’t let you see them. 

Castiel would turn to the subtle noises, to the expectation of a louder one; searching, fearing. He had drawn himself in as much as possible; muscles tensed, breath shallow- but arms and legs still kicking and pulling against the bindings. If the monster hungered, Castiel was fair game.

Its eyes were raking greedily over him in the dark. He could hear it listening, if that was even possible- he could smell the shadow of something rotten.

“I know you’re in here-“ Words tumbled out, drunken in sound, “Who are you?” An anxiety was boiling with the fear, stabbing into the beds of Castiel’s fingernails slowly and torturously, “Tell me!” Castiel heaved up the pleading scream, “What do you want?”

Sounds skipped over like flat stones on a lake. Slowly edging further and further away.

More screaming, so much more screaming. The feeling of being circled by vultures maddening. Castiel shrieked until his throat caved in on itself, dried out in thirst and injury; wet by blood rather than spit and water. 

The tears dried up too, shoulders racking dryly, eyes snipped at by blunt scissors from behind, mucus dried with scabs above a tormented lip.

Castiel was in tatters, a man made of creases. Worn to nothing.

The sounds returned.

Suddenly close.

Hands went to smooth the creases; sliding up along cold inner thighs.

An ice-pick made of panic stabbed through Castiel’s heart; eyes flung open- muscles flinching back, legs instinctively trying to snap shut against bindings and callused fingers.

Memory of the rape came crashing back.

“No-“

Pale eels tangled in Castiel’s gut, breaking their spines and dying in ugly knots; rotting there inside him. Festering.

A hushed growl. “What do I want?”

Soft, cold damp pressed over Castiel’s mouth and nose. Ether and false flowers. Sudden dizziness.

The pain started to slip.

Chloroform.

Castiel tried to hold his breath, but fear betrayed him. As he struggled, as the monster pressed down over him, the situation blurred and blotted and faded. He gulped in the poison air.

The last sickness he felt was the tongue on his neck, the fingers dragging over his bloody hole.

The filthy snarl melted into Castiel’s pounding heartbeat and slowing breaths.

“You.”


	3. Captor

Castiel was dreaming.

This, he would learn, was even worse than the other option.

Because while in a dream, you don’t know that you are dreaming

Rings of ice were tied tight, constricting and cold around his wrists, middle, knees and ankles. His back pressed against what must be stone; smooth, unforgiving. He felt it as though it was real. He felt the dark pressing down as though it was real.

Moving brought no difference in feeling, thinking lead only to a more focussed form of fear manifested in panicked movement.

A gag tied over his mouth stole every scream.

Hushing him with its crushing grip.

Creating the illusion that he was calm.

_Let me out_

In answer, Enochian whispers began to tumble through the air, piling over each other, each one slightly transparent to let the others peek through. Other-wordly but comforting in familiarity. Castiel reached out for them with his cries.

He opened eyes formerly screwed shut with the effort to escape, to catch the source of the speech and urge it to rescue him. His lenses filled with brilliant light, harsh and white. The lights moved in human forms, but animal heads rested on geometric shoulders; staring blankly with hollow eyes. 

His brothers and sisters.

_Help me_

The gag took his words and the shoulders of his family shook as though in laughter. Wolf jaws flapped, beaks clacked, fish heads rocked back and forth. Hollow eyes stared unblinking.

_Please help me_

The mouths all flapped, bodies buzzed. One leant over, wings spreading gracefully behind him as he pressed bovine lips over Castiel’s ear, halo turning Castiel’s human eyes bit by bit to ash. A single Enochian phrase was passed from the angel to the human and it took hope away. 

“Why should we help you?”

The angel pulled back, gaze unwavering. Castiel’s frightened eyes drank up his searing light. But the flaring began to weaken.

Patches of rot spread like ink on damp paper over the sharp form. Veins of it blossomed and crept; a stink filled the thick air. The hollow eyes began to sag and melt. Stretching down as the bull’s features ran like heated wax.

The wings dropped, strings of sinew snapping as the joints shattered and the feathers tuned to mud, the halo fell with a piercing crash. The other angels began to curve over, bones turned to dust and no longer holding up their darkening corpses.

Horror constricted him, squeezing out his air and warmth and life.

The gag stole the screams.

Rotted flesh dropped in chunks, hitting Castiel’s skin with wet squelches, lukewarm and slick. Black blood poured and painted Castiel to match his surroundings. It wrapped him and caked over him and slid slowly into his eyes, up his nose, into his ears and the corners of his mouth.

The sour taste hauled up bile but the gag made it impossible to cough up.

The angels fell over him, into him, one by one, distorted, dying, deformed. Flesh peeling and bodies turning cold and heavy.

Castiel’s heart was in spasms, his stomach rolling and writhing, guts cold and seething in horror and revulsion and guilt. 

_I didn’t mean for this- please-_

Unearthly sounds echoed from the dying angels like screams underwater stirred into the rumbling of a shaking earth. Sounds of a slaughterhouse.

Tears streamed from wide eyes that could not bring themselves to close.

_I’m so sorry_

The piles were crushing, hundreds of them collapsing and festering over Castiel on the slab. Falling and shrivelling on top of him as the angels did when they were thrown from heaven to the strange world below.

The human world.

A human.

There was a human too.

Watching.

Dean.

Thank god, _Dean._

_Help me_

Their eyes connected, Castiel wrestled against his restraints and the melted angels pooling over him, he shrieked desperately into the gag. 

The green irises turned cold, the lips pinched with disgust. 

Castiel screamed again, pushed again. 

Dean Winchester turned away and vanished without a trace into the dark.

Abandoning him.

 

\--

 

He woke still wrapped in fear.

The smell of rot haunted him, the taste of rancid blood squeezing his throat. The weight still pressed heavy and cold over every inch of his trembling body, and Dean’s cold stare was still slicing into him like a thousand blunt knives.

A sob peeled from searing vocal chords.

“Shh…”

The peel stopped midway, leaving the raw flesh exposed, half covered by skin, half free of the sound, half caked in it still.

“No need to cry.”

A hand pressed heavy over Castiel’s naked chest, another on his hip. The foul scents of sweat, rot, alcohol and piss rolled off the looming body, pouring out in heavy breaths that choked Castiel like tar. Another scent hung in the air, dense.

Semen.

The peel finished and tears burned on their way out.

“Oh, sweetie,” Castiel’s body tremored when the monster moved his hands, stroking over him in a way that would be soothing in any other context but this; the breath hit Castiel’s neck like a blow from a wooden plank as his captor leant closer, “I only have so much chloroform, you’re gonna need to learn how to grin and bear it.”

Castiel squirmed like a butterfly pinned to a board. The collector who had found him couldn’t bring himself to take his life, so he sentenced him to a slow death instead, put on display with needles through each arm, crucified.

Castiel winced when he shifted his legs, hot hurt tearing between them, scabs breaking where the rapist had made him bleed. Where he’d fucked him in the alley and while chloroform had held him in bindings of coarse fabric and blind folds of black.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Insides were set coiling when filthy fingers started sliding about Castiel’s chilled, bruised skin, along his arms, over his chest and stomach and hips, “I bet it burns.” The fingers found Castiel’s limp jaw, grabbing it and flapping it open and closed, _playing_ with it.

More hot tears oozed.

One hand strayed to Castiel’s crotch, the other’s fingers dipped into the mixture of blood and thick, waterless spit sitting stagnant on Castiel’s tongue. Castiel tossed his head and cried out again, voice cracking off into nothing as he curved away from the poison touches. “Get off me-“ The words whispered out, quietened by a scream wrecked and drying throat, “Please leave me alone, just for a day, please- I don’t want it.”

A scoff.

A slap tore across Castiel’s cheek and a fist hit him hard in the ass, ripping off the scabs, sending tidal waves of hurt crashing over the bruised skin and muscle; Castiel screamed. Knuckles shattered his nose.

“You sure?” Castiel could barely hear or feel the man for the pained ringing in his ears, “Let’s see.” 

Castiel whined.

He writhed when a hand closed around his cock and started pumping.

“S-stop-“ 

Tears no longer oozed, they ran much faster.

It was like something was reaching into him and twisting its bony fingers through his veins, tangling his guts, blocking his throat and poking holes in his lungs and heart. It ran through like a fever, muddling his thoughts with a loathed heat. The fingers squeezed his innards, bruised them and tied them in ugly bows, they stroked them and teased them and filled them with air.

Something half way between a whimper and a moan clawed its way out of Castiel as he lay and suffered.

“Mmm,” The pumping sped and the grip tightened; Castiel curled his toes when the other hand cupped his balls, “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

Castiel tried to say no, tried to scream out for the man to stop, but the twisting inside him pushed out pining pants instead.

He tugged at his mind to make it take him away, to pull him out of his body and carry him to a memory or a fantasy. To get it to cradle him and take him into a distant dream. Maybe even to get it to take him away forever, to show mercy and kill him with a stroke. 

“Please-“

Lips pressed down on Castiel’s throat and the pumping was making his vision flicker, unwanted euphoria tingling in his spine.

“You want this,” The words crawled over Castiel’s sweat drenched skin like a thousand tiny spiders,” You just love being touched.”

It got faster, another plea swallowed up by Castiel's sobbing and moaning.

Faster.

Castiel choked out a cry when orgasm hit and his body jerked, cum spurting out of him into the rapist’s callused fingers.

The grip released him and Cas collapsed back into the chair, sobbing and trying to catch his breath.

Fingers grappled in his hair again.

The other hand dragged over Castiel’s lips, wiping his semen over his skin and into his mouth. 

“Taste that,” Castiel gagged as the fingers stuck into his mouth and reached around, filling it with the salty sweet taste; the man leaned close as he took his fingers out, “Taste that fucking cum and tell me you didn't want that.”

The fingers released him, the oppressive mass breaking contact.

Castiel threw up.

How much longer was this going to go on?

How many hours, days, weeks, months, years?

He returned to the refuge of relentless crying, pitiful whining and crying and struggling. 

Finally, he submitted to exhaustion and let the nightmares take hold.


	4. Hollow

The nightmare did not present itself as a nightmare this time.

It was the cruel kind that warped as time ticked on.

Thus as a consequence, Castiel allowed his body to feel something other than fear, hurt. He let it, just for a second, revel in a sense of safety.

A poor decision on his behalf.

He stood in a field, grass rippled, a pure blue filled the sky to the brim with clouds and sunshine. Birds twittered. Castiel smiled; he certainly had every reason to.

The wind ran tentative fingers through his hair and over his unclothed body, the sun kissed his skin and warmed his hair.

Relaxed, at ease, Castiel closed bright eyes and let out a sigh.

The sigh jarred.

Something caught in Castiel’s throat.

The bright eyes flicked back open, darker now under a meshed brow. His muscles tensed. He tried to cough it out but it just sat there in his windpipe, stiff and cold.

The gentle stroke of the breeze faded away to a static nothing, the birds flew away and took their airy melodies with them, the sunshine got brighter, whiter. But it got colder as it did. Clinical.

Castiel felt his feet sink down into the earth; holding him in place.

He hacked and wheezed. The something moved.

It crawled.

More somethings crawled in his stomach.

His skin felt all of a sudden too tight, his blood too cold as the crawling pressed at the back of his tongue. The taste of rot filled his mouth.

An arm.

A withered, husk of an arm slimy with dark bile and stinking of death clawed past his teeth and landed heavily in the vibrancy of the grass.

Like spider’s legs, the bony fingers scuttled over to Castiel’s paled hands, digging sharp nails into the flesh. At the contact, the sunken skin broke and dissolved, turning to a grey, reeking sludge that poisoned the ground.

Dizziness hit Castiel hard, his head suddenly light. His heart beating rapidly as though it had shrunken down to half its size and now had to work twice as hard. As he fell in what would have been a faint, the thrashing inside him erupted from his bloodied lips, from his nostrils. His ears. The corners of his eyes.

_The dead came from you_

Sinew rolled down his cheeks like tears, writhing organs and limbs forced themselves free of his body, splattering and pooling on the fluorescent grass, painting the green black and grey. 

_Each corpse tripped by your strings_

The force of the carcasses hurled him onto his back, turning his panicked eyes to the impossibly white sky and driving his head into the synthetic grass and the cold mud underneath it. Fibres of plastic cords snapped as he sunk, the illusion of the field breaking, frayed at the edges. The green was slowly staining muddy grey and black and blue, the dead just kept pouring out. 

_You killed them_

Breath refused to enter Castiel’s convulsing, wretched body; even if it had wanted to, it couldn’t. Bones and rancid flesh filled every crack and crevice to breaking point.

A scream was smothered by the dead as Castiel’s stomach tore open and hundreds of bodies rolled out. 

_All those angels; people too._

Castiel was being ripped apart, somehow still clinging to life as he drowned slowly in the taste and smell and press of the bodies. Their black and red mud started to seep into the sky now, like mould.

He looked away, looked down at his chest. His bones were cracked and poked through his skin; in great tentacles of flesh and blood the angels slithered out of him, Castiel’s muscle and skin folded back to let it pass. 

The flow was relentless.

Tears mixed with the veins that bled from his eyes.

_Dead, Castiel. All of them dead or dying_

Fragments of the sky peeled like old paint, dropping in white flakes and drifting slowly down. Void sat where the sky had once been. 

The skin of Castiel’s arms was peeling back as though by a surgeon’s hand; bodies climbed out instead of blood. 

When he screamed this time, a burst of it broke free and tumbled through the air; Castiel’s legs tore open, spine splitting clean in the middle as his brothers and sisters erupted from impossible places within. 

He could see their faces.

Their sad, broken, terrified and melting faces.

_Murderer_

A recognizable voice whispered that into his ear; he turned as the tear reached his neck and cleaved his jaw.

Two blades of false grass had curved to eyes boiling with hatred, pieces of the sky rolled to form a familiar face. 

Castiel’s tongue was sliced in half, his lip and skull divided, his brain.

Dean’s hard toed boot finished the job.

“I don't need pathetic monsters like you.”

 

\--

 

When Castiel woke, the ripping was still there. The man was over him. Pounding into him and tearing his flesh with every thrust.

It would only get worse if he let the terror from his dream force him to move, to cry out. It would get worse if he let the man know he was conscious.

Castiel lay as still as he could, he kept the sobs out of his throat, the tears out of his aching, stinging eyes. 

He pretended to sleep.

Each time the monster rutted him he saw the nightmare, he anticipated the feeling of being pulled apart, he expected his legs to pull open and break from his body, he expected his insides to roll out of him with a thousand corpses.

When the rapist came and moaned into Castiel’s chest, Castiel saw the Dean made of fallen sky and plastic grass, the scowl, the disgust in his eyes.

He clenched his fist only to have his chalky bones send jolts of sharp hurt through every nerve, but he didn’t have the energy to cry out or even to crease his brow at the pain. Energy was something of the past, he was drained and hurting and aching inside and out.

A panted breath rolled over his papery skin and cooled the dewy sweat that soaked it. The man pulled out. 

Castiel lay limp, eyes stubbornly closed, breathing stubbornly steady and heavy with false rest. His gut burned, his body felt frayed and hollow. 

He could see Dean walking away behind his closed eyes, footsteps matching the heavy, scraping footfalls of his captor.

A series of heavy locks clicked and clattered, each splitting through the air like thunder. A door opened and with it a glimmer of sound ran briefly to play by Castiel’s starving ears, only to leave as another slam brought a re-closure of the space; turning it back into a cage.

Limp, cold, bloodied and stinking of sex, Castiel lay perfectly still, his eyes half open but unseeing and glassy. His paled lips were a harsh mixture of red, white and black, one eye was blackened and swollen, his jaw still lay slack and detached. Stubble was poking up through his sickly chin, jaw and cheeks, it prickled with the cold.

His eyes ached as though being gnawed on by idle insects, head buzzing with their wings and the whispery scratches of their legs. 

A lone tear that was more salt than water struggled its lonely way out of his eye whilst the stagnant air crowded him and poked at his injuries, his bruises, scabs and still bleeding wounds. 

He would force out more tears, but there wasn’t enough water in his body for that. There wasn’t enough of anything in his body.

The hollowness was eating him up like acid.

Turning him into an empty shell.

 

\--

 

The day passed at a crawl; though it was difficult to keep track of the time in a place so void of sound and light. Castiel would sleep but he was scared of nightmares and waking up to the reeking body of his captor. His insides burned for water, for food, for anything to fill the hole growing inside him. 

The darkness stirred itself around, shadows occasionally parting from the matte black of the basement. Cockroaches, a mouse. 

Little creatures running free in the tar while Castiel drowned in its weight.

Heavier sounds came too, but not from the room.

Sounds of pipes running with water.

Water.

Castiel whined quietly, the sound grated the tender flesh. 

New sounds with more weight. Footsteps on creaking floorboards. 

He closed his eyes, tugging his wrists once again at the bindings; each time he did it hurt more. His wrists were rubbed raw and bleeding from thrashing, his ankles likewise. The pain wouldn’t stop him from trying, not yet anyway.

The footsteps grew closer still, coming down from the floor above to the stairs below. 

Castiel hauled his arms forward, creaky elbows cracking at the force of the swing; the chair groaned and Castiel kicked as well. Each move hammered pinprick needles of pain through every bone and every artery; everything between his legs was hot with the hurt, sticky with dried blood and broken scabs. 

The locks, however, clicked and Castiel forced himself to still.

He could feel the familiar crawl of the rapist’s eyes and recognised the drag of his stinking breath.

“Are you awake there?” The mock whisper came from a few feet away. Regardless, Castiel could smell it. “You’re so very still.”

Castiel refused to respond. He wouldn’t give the monster any words to twist into torture.

“Are you alive?”

The voice was closer, a million tiny ants sprinted down his spine.

“Oooh, nice shiver,” Castiel heard something else behind the monster’s breathing, a soft, near silent sound. His focus was torn from it when the stench hit him in a solid, putrid wall and the chair slipped down, legs screeching as it shortened. Castiel felt specs of rust flick onto his cold feet. “You’re not looking that good, lover boy,” a rough hand patted Castiel’s, “I’ll need to fix that, you need something to liven you up.”

Castiel put all his effort into a weak shake of the head. A whined “I’m fine” that came out as a pitiful mixture of a hiss, a growl and a whimper.

“No no no you aren’t,” The man had both of Castiel’s hands now, the former angel felt his eyes try to tear at the horrid sting, “I’ve neglected your needs.” One of the hands patted his cheek, the other went for something off to the right.

There was the subtle clink of glass. The gentle whispering sound of water shifting.

Castiel damn near cried when the water touched his lips and ran cool and fresh over his tongue and down his sandpaper throat. Some of the water spilled off his slack jaw but he caught most of it, gulping it down as fast as he could. Heart quickened, body taught. 

“Look at you go-“

The glass was pulled away before he could drink any more.

“How was that? Still thirsty?”

The aching in his throat for more water overpowered Castiel’s caution. He nodded furiously.

Castiel heard the glass crack and the water spill, “Oops, sorry.” The figure stepped closer, standing over Castiel’s lap, he flicked water from his hand over Castiel’s face. “Butter fingers.”

Castiel struggled to try and fix the situation. He’d done something bad. The man was too close. Far too close. He was going to do something. “It’s okay,” He stuttered out as best he could, words stumbling out and falling as though their heads were spinning “Throat’s all better now,” He tried to sound grateful “Thank you.”

“Hmm, well it still sounds a bit coarse to me,” A roughened thumb rolled over Castiel’s shoulder, “I’m all out of water, but I think I’ve got something better.”  
The thumb slipped up with the rest of the hand, squeezing Castiel’s cheeks to force open his mouth.

Castiel’s heart dropped when he heard a belt buckle clinking and a flyer being dragged down.

Before he could even think to pull back, Castiel’s lips were thrust over the fat crotch of his captor’s boxers.

Disgust tossed his blood and stirred around his insides.

His head was forced to press back and forth, jaw opened and closed, tongue tasting the disgusting fabric and feeling the warm behind it. He tugged at his restraints but the hand just pushed him closer, the bulging underwear filling his mouth.

He gagged, unable to breath.

The other sighed.

The bulge got harder.

Castiel felt a bit of bile force its way up and the hand rocked his head harder and faster and faster. The rapist’s crotch was swelling and stretching the fabric as Castiel’s staggered breaths spat over it. 

Briefly, Castiel was tugged away. 

He hauled in the breath while he could, his body shook and tears were shed messily. Streaking down his face like dagger drawn gashes.

The underwear were pulled down.

Castiel screwed shut his eyes and tried, tried so hard to pull away. 

His head was forced back down.

The corpses from the dream filled his mouth and throat. They pressed against the flesh in the form of the rapist’s thick cock. They writhed and dragged back and forth and bled out salty blood. Castiel could feel them catch on his teeth and force back his tongue, not leaving. Never leaving. Staying.

He dry heaved and spluttered and choked and whined. Roughly, he felt it slide in and out of his mouth and over his tongue. It stuck far inside, blocking out air. His darkness crazed mind turned its pulsing to the weak movements of slowly suffocating life.

“Come on,” The rapist's voice came to Castiel through sheets of cold sweat “Use that tongue.”

More tears. More choking. 

Behind closed eyes the white sky and bristled grass flickered in and out of memory. Castiel tried his best to replace it with images of safety. To replace the sick sounds around him with the gentler kind.

His head was spinning, depraved of air and drifting to distant places filled with distant warmth and distant caring.

_Yes._

_Please._

_Take me away._

“Come on!”

A slither of air was caught, from the distant places Castiel plummeted back into smothering and the company of tears.

The fingers all pulled at his hair in a way that burned his scalp and tore at his skin. Clawlike nails snipped his paper scalp.

Castiel’s tongue twitched along the shaft in a spasm of hurt, eyes spitting out another spray of tears while hungrily, cruelly, the rapist bucked his hips.

Again the corpse was writhing.

Bleeding.

Slithering along.

Castiel pushed at it with his tongue, with his spluttered lungfuls of stagnant air.

_Get out of me, get out of me, I don’t want you, I don’t want you, get out, get out, get out of me._

Harder he shoved, harshly he wheezed. 

“That’s it-“

He struggled and heaved.

“Almost-“

He detested the weight.

“There--god-“

Cum filled the last crevasses free of the cock, the hands in Castiel’s hair twitched and the hips followed suit. He had to swallow the seed or breathe it. Stomach twisting, he forced it down.

Rough breathing from above and pummelled him with its rasping hiss.

The hand freed him and Castiel dropped away as his captor slid himself slowly out and released Castiel from his mass. There was a smile in his voice when he spoke.

“How’s your throat now?” The man chuckled dryly as he stepped away, “Bet it’s smooth as silk.”

The emptiness was creeping back in, the dissident hisses of his nightmares leaking in through Castiel’s fractured skin. “Why?” Castiel couldn’t hear himself for the hollow drumming in his ears, “What’s the point in this?”

Motion paused, as though in thought. Silence drove its pins into Castiel’s ribcage.

“Give it time.”

_Time_

The door slammed and above all Castiel hoped that time would crash like the sound. 

That it would dissipate to nothing and, in its beautiful ending. let Castiel out of this hell and into the welcoming arms of death.


	5. Near

For all Castiel was moving, he may as well be dead. 

Exhaustion was heavy on every waking inch of him: hunger mixed with sickness gnawing all the substance away, the dark and blood-loss and pain slowly sapping the colour from his skin. But despite all this, Castiel just would not die. He wanted to, yes, more than anything else. He wasn’t trying to keep breathing, but breathe on he did.

Shallow breath after shallow breath.

Heartbeat after heartbeat:

Life clung to Castiel like a disease and with each passing second it got harder and harder to bear.

He was alone for now, stewing in solitude, but how long would that last? When would the cage open, when would the monster crawl back in and grind him into an even finer form of rubble?

The anticipation of his return was an agony in itself, never mind the starving and the hurting. It filed away at his sanity. Each time even the essence of a sound breached into the stagnant quiet, Castiel’s heart constricted and chilled, throat tightening, skin crawling, eyes screwing shut with the pitiful hope that maybe if he didn’t see the man, he would stop existing; stop hurting, stop raping and choking.

Though he never kept his eyes closed too long.

He might fall asleep if he did that.

He shuddered. The thought of what his nightmares threw at him was enough to chill his blood, enough to wrack his form with guilt and sickening fear. He didn’t want to see those rotting angels again. He didn’t want so see people he loved turned sour with disgust . He didn’t want to hear Dean disowning him again. He couldn’t bear to watch him walk away.

But he feared it. Every second, every hour, every indeterminate day.

That Dean would turn away and abandon him. 

_You can’t stay_

“Why?”

Castiel spoke to the dark.

_You can’t stay_

“Why can’t I stay?”

He whispered to it softly.

And it whispered back.

The whispers rode into his ears quietly, Enochian words tumbling past, one by one. 

With them the bodies.

“Stop-“ Castiel threw open his eyes, writhing to try and escape the dream, “Leave me alone.”

The bodies.

The bodies.

_THE BODIES_

“Please just leave me alone.”

He stared into the pitch black, to the suggestion of a mouldy ceiling, trying to focus on the detail of the hellish reality to keep the angels at bay.

A circle of limp figures were drifting closer, features invisible, hanging like puppets on strings.

“Go away-“ Tears were fire in the corners of Castiel’s eyes, “Go away!” He kicked and jerked his bruised and blood-streaked body, the bindings had worn right through to his muscle and blood was spilling slowly and painfully from tired veins.

The arms of the encroaching angels rose, hands dangling, the heads all tilted up and turned to face him. Mouths opened.

“You’re not real!”

_Doesn’t matter_

They were so close now, almost touching him. Castiel screamed, his blood trickled out through his wrists and ankles. He pressed his body back as far as he physically could.

Contorted, the angels leaned in, wings stretched over and curved around Castiel like a cage. Musty feathers crumbled onto his flesh.

The door slammed upstairs. In the real world.

_The real world, this is the real world. The basement is real. The bindings are real. The stinging and the aching and the freezing are real. This suffering is real._

_The angels aren’t._

They faded into the air and vanished like mist.

Castiel’s body went slack. He bit back more tears. His crying had no doubt reached out and angered his captor. He would come again before the cuts on Castiel’s wrists and ankles could bleed enough to let him die.

Sure enough, the stairs groaned as someone climbed down. 

His heart stammered.

The door swung open and the man stormed in.

“Morning, sweetheart,” His captor’s tone was sweet, Castiel felt sick to his stomach, “Heard you crying before and figured I should do something about it.”

Castiel yelped when his jaw was grabbed and snapped harshly back into place. 

“See what I mean?” There was a rustling, not that Castiel heard it through the hurt shaking his body, “You like to make a bit of noise.”  
A hard rubber ball was forced between Castiel’s aching teeth, two straps on either side tugged out and fastened by the back of his head. The plastic forced back his tongue and filled his mouth with its flat, artificial taste.

An attempt at crying out was hushed to a muffled groan. It jarred his airway, but not enough to suffocate him, just enough to make breathing twice the struggle it already was.  
A snicker from his captor forced another whine, the gag stole the sound without effort.

“That’s _much_ better;” Castiel bit down on the ball, “Nice and quiet- oh,” a dirty finger brushed Castiel’s bleeding wrist, “Look at this mess you’ve made…” The monster tutted and dragged a sharp fingernail over the gashes in Castiel’s wrists.

The eyes rolled back in his head, biting down on the ball, fists clenching and toes curling; anything to stop himself from screaming. He needed to shut himself up, everything could get so much worse if he cried. The rapist liked to twist everything he did to match whatever cruelties he wanted to inflict.

Castiel restrained the sob, it twitched in the form of a cough.

There was a pleasured hum, the fingers retreated and footsteps took his captor away.

He returned with bandages.

Castiel noted the lack of disinfectant with optimism.

His chances of dying were not yet snuffed out.

“There,” the wounds were covered, but the man had not yet moved away, “All patched up and hushed up,” He wiped a bandage over Castiel’s face, clearing it of grime, “You’re handsome when your quiet- struggling doesn’t suit you.”

Another hand wandered down, the soft fabric of the bandage hovering first over Castiel’s neck, then his chest, stomach, the lingered by his hip bones.

Castiel’s eyes pleaded, he tried to snap together his legs, Attempts at bargaining turned to hums.

“Now what did I just say?” 

The bandage slipped over his cock and Castiel flinched.

“Struggling doesn’t suit you.”

His captor tied the knot

_Breathe,Castiel, calm down. Don’t let him know you’re panicking._

_He’ll fuck you again if he knows._

“If I hear you screaming again,” He pressed his leathery palm over Castiel’s crotch, seething bled into Castiel’s blood, “I’m going to make sure something is always in you or touching you,” His voice broke with a smile that he pressed to Castiel’s cheek in a gesture of false kindness, “Making your body sing and your crying swap with panting; pleasure’s a hard feeling to keep out.”

_Close your eyes Castiel, don’t make a sound. Don’t move._

With a shift of pressure, his self-directed orders grew harder and harder to follow. Castiel had to bite back a shriek when a finger pushed into his ass.

The finger twirled and the motion seared and teased. 

Castiel shuddered, something like a moan hit the ball in his mouth. Like a moan, not really a moan. It was considerable closer to a whimper.

“See what I mean?” A second finger caused more hurt than teasing, blood started to trickle warmth onto the chair, “That’s nice, isn’t i-“

Three sharp knocks cut him off.

“Hello?”

A muffled voice that didn’t belong to either of them saved Castiel from another rape.

Roughly, the fingers were tugged out and a slap tore across Castiel’s face. He could care less. Somebody was here.

“It seems we have visitors, “ There was disdain in his captors voice. Castiel would smirk at him if he could, “I’ll be right back.”

As soon as the door was shut, Castiel started to struggle. Harsh tug after harsh tug; anything to make a noise, to arouse suspicion. He was swimming further and further out to sea with each jerk; he would either be rescued, or a monster would snap its jaws around his ankles and pull him back down. 

Castiel took the risk.

He embraced it.

Screams as loud as he could scream lashed out, the gag, however, was working well.

 _Doesn’t matter_

In a crazed thrashing motion, Castiel spat out more shrieks, the gag was eating them up.

_Even a little sound might break through the walls_

_Break them down_

Things were being moved about upstairs; Castiel could feel the chairlegs scraping the floor like nails on a chalkboard.

More screams. More stuggling.

The door creaked; sounds from outside bloomed.

“Who are you?”

A shuffling.

“Agents Carraway and Gatz; FBI-“

Castiel froze.

“FBI? -“ Castiel could barely register what his captor was saying, his focus trained in on the other voice, “What can I do for you, officers?”

“Do you mind answering a few questions? Nothing personal, of course, there have just been a string of strange instances around here and we’re wondering if you had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary.”

A second voice.

Castiel’s eyes widened.

His heart stopped.

_Sam and Dean_

Tears sprung to his eyes.

Screams tumbled out of his throat and piled up against the gag, pushing it and pounding against it relentlessly. The bandages on Castiel’s wrists and ankles stained red from his thrashing.

_Get me out of here_

“Sure, come right through,” Castiel gnashed his teeth down on the ball while upstairs courtesies were exchanged, “Do you two want a coffee or anything?”

Thorns had taken the place of Castiel’s blood, scraping his veins as he screamed and screamed and screamed. Sam and Dean were coming inside. They would be closer. If Castiel could hear them they might be able to hear him if only he could make a sound.

“We’re good,” It was Dean speaking, the voice twisted in Castiel’s stomach, his nightmares bled through the sheets of his thoughts, “Do you mind if I-?”

“Not at all, make yourself comfortable.”

_Come down. I’m right under your feet. Dean. Sam. I’m right here._

“So,” Sam spoke now instead of Dean, his tone professional. Castiel put every last flicker of his energy into thrashing his bruised, starved body, “What have you heard?”

“Well-” The rapist scoffed. A sofa creaked. Castiel’s neck nearly snapped at the force of his jerking. “You’ll have to be more specific; this is a pretty shitty part of town, I hear lots of bad stuff.”

_You know what sounds you bastard. Screaming. My screaming. You making me want to die. You monster. You kidnapped me. Sam and Dean, he kidnapped me. Help me._

“Okay well,uhh, anything animal?” Castiel’s head was pounding from the exertion of struggling, “Like snarling?”

“Snarling? I may have heard a bit of that” Castiel’s captor paused in flase thought, Castiel took the opportunity to scream so hard his voice cracked. “Like what kind of snarling are we talking about here?”

“A big dog, maybe a wolf or coyote,” Through the floorboards Castiel could hear Sam leaning back in his seat, “So you’re sure you’ve heard something like that? Your neighbours don’t have dogs?”

_No no no you’re on the wrong track he’s putting you off the trail. He’s the monster. He’s the monster._

Castiel’s ears popped from the force he put into his next shout. He nearly choked on his own tongue as he coughed at the way screaming tore up his throat.

_I’m right here, under your feet. Please he’s got me right here. Why can’t you hear me?_

“No, none of the apartments around here let people have ‘em, nothing bigger than a chihuahua at any rate.” More springs creaked. “And yeah, I’ve definitely heard something growling like that.”

Another brief span of silence that Castiel tried to taint with sound.

He was so unsuccessful he could hear Dean standing up with a quiet puff of breath. “Sir, do you minf if I use the facilities? Too much coffee this morning.”

“Down the stairs to the right, it’s a bit dingy though.”

“I’m sure I’ve seen worse.” There was a smile in Dean’s voice.

_Down the stairs. Down the stairs. Dean was coming down the stairs._

The thorns under Castiel’s skin bloomed to roses, anxiety using his heart as a punching bag and chewing his guts. More tears streaked down his cheeks as his body twisted as though pulled by invisible strings, contorting against the restraints in ways that should break it but didn’t.

With each creaking step on the floor boards, Castiels’ tears grew sweeter, the nerves ready to blossom with relief. He anticipated Dean’s shocked expression, caring hands untying the binds and mopping up the blood. Warm arms that were welcome on his skin wrapping around him and carrying him out of the dark. 

His captor with a knife in his chest or a bullet in his brain. 

The sky, the earth, safety.

Through the thoughts jostling in his skull, the shrill buzz of an EMF detector whirred and crackled. Dean’s footsteps were slow and growing closer.

Some doors creaked, the EMF crackled. 

He must be right by the door.

Castiel screamed as loud as his tired vocal chords would allow, he broke into a fit of hacks, lungs and throat to dry to keep going.

Dean was right by the door.

Rescue was inches away.

The EMF buzzed.

_I’m down here, I’m down here, find me and rescue me. Please. Please rescue me._

Castiel could almost feel Dean’s eyes glaze over him before he walked away.

_NO._

He wheezed and choked. His teeth dug into the ball but the scream didn’t even start. 

_PLEASE_

The stairs creaked as they were walked up, the EMF detector tucked away.

_DON’T LEAVE ME HERE._

There was a brief exchange between voice upstairs that Castiel could no longer hear. His ears were ringing, a hollow heartbeat droning like wasps in his chest. He felt himself go cold, the heat sapped away and crushed. 

_I CAN’T STAY HERE ANY LONGER PLEASE_

The dark things started stretching back out of the space around him, reaching dead claws around Castiel’s body and into his lungs. The door whined and Castiel’s body moved as though possessed. His fingernails broke as he scratched them on the wood, splinters digging underneath, his bones were clicking as he writhed, his scabs all tearing, bruises getting darker. 

“Thank you for your time.”

 _PLEASE GOD PLEASE DON’T GO_  
The door was closed gently and dead claws warped into hands, arms and shoulders that wrestled against Castiel’s ribs. His dead brothers and sisters began to crowd around him. 

_COME BACK_  
Sidewalk was tapped over and with each step Castiel’s body got colder and colder, the things inside him stretching and scratching and croaking behind his teeth.

_I’M RIGHT HERE PLEASE_

Car door clicked, the purr of the impala joined the droning in Castiel’s blood. 

_SAM_

The sounds started to slip away into the rest of the city.

_DEAN_

Within seconds it was nothing but another piece of silence.

Castiel let his body slump down. The pain distant but the torturous grip of nightmares strengthening as his consciousness tried chasing the boys.

_Dean…_

Reddened, his eyes lost focus, heavy eyelids sliding down. He was being pulled down by falling angels that danced with his fatigue with cruel smiles plastered to rotting faces.

Blurring.

One last thought before the water rushed over. Confusion hung from its edges like weeping willow branches that dipped down and shimmered silver in the evening light.

_Dean,_

The current started to ripple over with its muddy swirls and black waters.

Hundreds of the dead waited with bated breath for Castiel to sink.

_Why couldn’t I stay?_

He sank.


	6. Crucible

Castiel did not rise.

Not fully.

Not for days.

His body tumbled in the thick molasses of the ocean around him, his lungs were painted black by the water every time they tried to breathe, eyes were blinded and burning and melting away.

Cries for help were silenced before they even left his throat.

The ocean kept pouring in.

But the purity of the thick dark was reflective.

Images, sounds, people, creatures approached its mirror.

They acted in scenes.

Ever drowning, ever struggling, Castiel tossed and turned centre stage, surrounded by the nightmarish players.

Act one began to the sound of Jimmy Novak praying.

To ideas that Castiel sewed in his mind and nurtured to the point where their gnarled branches broke apart his skull and shrouds of leaves covered his eyes. 

Castiel’s stomach turned as he saw himself whisper in the innocent’s ear, convincing him to give up his life for what Castiel had lied was a noble cause.

He gave up his wife, his daughter, his home, his freedom.

For what?

What did you do to him, Castiel, what did you do?

Castiel watched helpless as Jimmy Novak’s body was twisted and broken, as every wound Castiel had forced upon it bloomed from the skin and juddered in the bones.

The form was pulverised and stitched back together.

Three times.

The soul inside was sobbing and begging for release.

His family, after years, gave up searching.

Jimmy's soul would never see or feel them again.

It died.

_”I’m so sorry.”_

The curtains fell.

An intermission was spiked with flashes of the real world as Castiel hauled himself from the sea; flashes came with the shadow of rape and unbearable cold. A chiselling ache that was creeping through every bone in his body. The taste of semen. The taste of bile. The taste of blood.

The waves lapped over his eyes again.

A new scene.

The aftermath of the apocalypse.

The massacres wreaked by the terrible god Castiel had pretended to be.

Screams streaked across the stage, through the air, they ripped apart the red velvet of the curtains and turned it to tatters. They ran over Castiel’s skin like razors, they painted his hands red. They charred the shining floorboards with the shapes of thousands of wings and the corpses they dragged with them piled and rotted in mounds.

Angels with no real reason to die destroyed because Castiel had thought them disloyal.

_Disloyal._

Disloyal to what, a fallen angel with leviathans in his blood? To a mass murderer with righteousness his only motive?

There were humans, too, in the piles of slaughtered lambs.

Perhaps some were sinners, but that is no reason to be killed.

Castiel had no right to judge them.

The piles teetered and fell as they pressed against the ceiling.

The disembodied screams danced in their painful reverie while behind them, the sky filled with shooting stars.

Castiel gazed up at them and the tears were like acid on his cheeks.

The ashes of smouldering feathers fell and piled like powered snow over the angular shoulders of the dancing cries.

Human voices joined the composition and partnered with the pirouetting angel shrieks that twirled closer and closer to Castiel’s neck every second. Buzz saws of shame. Guillotines of guilt.

Towering piles turned to crushing depths.

The abyss turned familiar with the taste of decomposing flesh.

Castiel’s bile was kept down by the slime that filled his throat and guts and lungs, his limbs were held in place by clinging hands and bodies that shook his shoulders and begged him to tell them why he had killed them. 

Desperate for answers they peeled his skin back and reached into his muscles and sinew, searching for the words they wanted between his organs. 

The ones they found didn’t satisfy, his excuses frail as cobwebs and reasoning composed of fine thread that turned brittle when pried. There was no reason that could ever justify his action. No good intention that could steer him up rather than down.

Steered down.

Hauled up.

Castiel breathed, the dance distant and hidden behind the mirror of the water. Someone had pulled him out and back into feeling.

The binds were tight on his wrists and ankles. 

Hunger gnawed.

Unobstructed his mouth hung open, the gag was gone but Castiel was too distant to see why. His head trembled and his brain threatened to cave in with every breath he forced out. Days had passed since last he ate or drank. There was only so far his body could stretch before it broke down. 

A fever was drawing what little water his body had left to his skin, but despite the heat of his blood he felt so cold. So very cold. 

His senses were too exhausted to taste the blood on his tongue as slowly it dripped down from his captor’s wrist. A few drops, no more, no less. It was gone, Castiel couldn’t swallow or turn to follow the sound of the monster’s movements.

“You’re not doing so well, are you?” The words were so distorted Castiel could barely understand them, the ocean he had been drowning in had filled his ears with sand, “Just keep hanging in there, it’ll pass.”

How could this pass?

His skin was boiling.

His blood was leeched of all heat.

His bones were trying to reshape.

His eyes turned to fibreglass when the monster pulled back the lids and looked into their dulled blue. 

Castiel could make out his features even in the dark, he’d been in it so long that it was almost clear. There was a smile on the other’s lips that sung out excitement and promised cruelty, his dark amber eyes were so full of vigour that they burned. 

Castiel wanted to close his eyes but his muscles all lay still like the corpses in his dreams. 

A kiss was pressed to Castiel’s cheek.

He was too dead inside to feel disgust.

To fear.

All he could do was lie in wait, hopefully for the real world to go away.

Fingers stroked his cheek tenderly. 

The eyes were green now. The smile was sad. 

Still too dead to feel, he lay and watched the hallucination above him loom over and stare. He anticipated the sadness in it to turn to hatred. 

He anticipated wrong.

The sadness got stronger.

A tear dropped down and Castiel felt it leak into his skin.

“Die.” Dean’s voice was pleading, it held Castiel gingerly, “You need to die, Cas.”

_I want to._

“Before the fever passes,” another kiss was pressed to Castiel’s forehead, “Try.” More tears dropped with it.

_Why didn’t you just let me stay?_

“Please.”

_I wouldn’t have to if you’d let me stay._

“Please just let go.”

_I’m trying. I’m trying. I’m trying but I can’t. Why did you leave?_

Castiel was on fire. Castiel was frozen. His body couldn’t decide which it hated more.

The sadness in Dean’s voice twisted quickly into bitterness. 

“You pathetic coward, you can’t even die, can you?”

_I’m trying._

“No you’re not.” Dean scowled at him and wiped the tears off his cheeks.His hand tore across Castiel’s face in a vicious slap. “You’re too scared, you’re clinging to it.” Another bone snapping blow that Castiel was too weak to brace for hit him hard and fast. “You’re gonna live through this and when you come out at the end you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

_Dean_

“I’ll kill you.”

Another blow knocked Castiel back into the tarry depths.

He closed his eyes.

The waters glued them together but when reality chose to tear them apart, the fever had passed.

The cold was still clinging and Castiel had changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for this being late- I got my 2 of my wisdom teeth out last Thursday and couldn't really focus that well afterwards. I also have a slight addiction to the Sims 3 that has been keeping me from doing everything I should be doing ((oops)) so yeah. 
> 
> Also, I need to write something nice because literally all I've been writing has been depressing in one way or another; so if you have any suggestions for cutesy, fluffy or light-hearted destiel one-shots (smut included), please comment them because the only ideas I have are all depressing or weird and that's all fine and dandy but I need a figurative change of literary scenery every now and then.


	7. Rise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has very graphic violence and a lot of blood. Just warning.

“Wake up.”

A gentle nudge buried itself in Castiel’s shoulders like a meat hook, wrenching him out of the ocean and throwing him onto the bleak dock of the basement.

As the real world crashed up against him with its scents and chills and pains, Castiel forced his eyes open by reflex more than anything else. He did not want to see anymore, not when day after day, all he saw were the same horrible things and dark they skulked in.

His eyes found different sights.

Or, at least, clearer ones.

The dark had thinned.

He turned. His fatigue was less, it didn’t assault him when he shifted.

His captor was grinning.

Castiel’s heart pounded and the sound was both loud and distant. Booming like thunderclaps coming from miles and miles away.

But Castiel couldn’t feel it.

He could barely feel anything.

Other than cold, that is.

There was plenty of cold.

“You’re lively today,” Castiel blinked, blearily looking up to meet the voice. The crisp, loud voice that sliced neatly through the air with a deep crunch, “Notice anything?”

Castiel refused to speak. He stared.

He could see blood pulsing under the rapist’s skin.

He could hear it.

And smell it, too. Sweet and bitter.

_The heartbeat isn’t mine_

Castiel’s hunger twisted and it felt different. It failed to gnaw or bite at his guts and throat, instead it sizzled next to his bones and in his teeth. The glands in his dried out mouth pinched as if to dredge up saliva. Stirred together the sensations crawled inside him and drew out a quiet whimper.

His gums were aching as though they had been stretched. His teeth felt like they would clack and bend with even the slightest of breaths, the roots replaced with weak thread that was woven into his nerves.

Something was off.

He was off.

The teeth of his captor were still bared.

Twice Castiel blinked, breathing carefully through his nose.

_You’re gonna live through this,_

Castiel’s heartbeat clashed against the other’s, it thrashed rather than pumped.

_and when you come out at the end_

He made no sound when his captor grabbed his chin and forced open his mouth. Castiel’s eyes flashed in fear, though, no matter how smooth his breathing remained.

_You’ll wish you hadn’t_

A smirk formed in the corner of his captor’s mouth.

His fingers poked in.

They brushed over his teeth and Castiel was sure that the threads would snap and his teeth would fall down his throat and choke him.

A smirk formed as his gum was pressed.

He winced when a row of sharp points parted the flesh.

“It worked.” Ecstacy seemed unwelcome. The fingers left. They moved to press over his skin, testing rather than holding. Inspecting, surprised.

Castiel’s heart beat wrestled the other’s, they sent echoes through the room that never quieted.

His eyes were frozen while his captor stood up with his childlike grin, taking it to the other side of the basement. He flicked on lights.

They burned Castiel’s eyes.

He heard them buzzing and crackling, it was like Castiel was conducting the electricity they were being run with.

He recoiled, screwing his eyes shut as he pressed his face down into his chest. His arms jerked against his restraints, wanting to fling up to hide him from the light, to save his eyes from being burnt away to stinking ashes.

“Bright, ain’t it?”

Castiel’s fingers were clawing at the arm rests, but he couldn’t bear the sound. Why was everything so loud?

“What-“

“What’s happening?” His captor hadn’t turned off the lights, Castiel’s head was pounding and the volume of the whisper was too harsh, “Nothing, but something certainly happened, it’s been happening for a while now.”

The light was blocked, hands were on his shoulders and they held them gently. For once they didn’t feel cold. “Open your eyes, you’ll see what happened.”

“I- I don’t want to.”

The grip tightened, clawlike nails pinched. Oppressive mass heavier in the air. “Open them.”

The claws dragged.

The blood that slipped out wasn’t warm. It was sweet like his captor’s, but the scent was heavy, too rich, rancid.

He was terrified of what he would see if he looked but there was no way not to.

His eyes met a mirror.

The image made him dizzy.

Jimmy’s face, maybe. But any remnants of that man were stretched thin and scattered. What had been light olive skin was bleached. Eyes a mere stain of the blue they had been,nestled in a sunken, swollen dark.

His lips were broken and scabbed.

Sharp teeth sat between them.

_I’ll kill you_

“See?”

Castiel tried to draw them back in. They wouldn’t move.

The scent of his own blood was making his hunger squirm. His cheeks pinched, trying still to salivate but lacking the water. His vision was red around the edges, slipping to something mad.

His next breath sounded like a snarl.

“Gorgeous…” When he was next touched, he snapped his head to face the fingers. His thoughts were all tumbling over each other and struggling to get through. His stomach was turning. His body was so cold. “You’re looking lovely, they suit you.”

_I’m a monster I’m a monster I’m a monster I’m a monster I’m a monster_

Castiel’s hiss turned to a whine, he clenched his fists, the splinters worked into his palms bit by bit with the pressure.

He couldn’t put the fangs away.

He sobbed. No tears, of course.

“Are you hungry?”

He tried his best to shake his head.

The hunger was squeezing and buzzing over every inch of him. He was starving. He had been for days and now it was even worse. He wanted to bend and tear at his own flesh; to drain and suckle on his own veins.

The strength of that want horrified him.

“What am I saying, of course you’re hungry.” His captor sighed, taking the mirror away and walking towards the door, “I’ll get you something.”

_I don’t want anything_

He tugged against his restraints while bit by bit the haze filled his vision and electrified his blood. His muscles were all pulsing and tense, trying to rip himself free so he could hunt.

_I don’t want to hunt I don’t want to kill I don’t want to drink_

A scream spewed out of him, messy all over his front. More followed. The image of Jimmy’s body crouched and ripping at somebody’s throat flashed with every hollow drum of his heart. He could taste the flesh and feel it chewy and fresh between his teeth. The blood would be warm and lovely on his lips.

More screams.

_They’ll never take you back they’ll never want you back they’ll kill you like they kill everything else like you_

“Calm down!” A bellow broke through the walls, but Castiel was unable to stop coughing up his cries, “You’ll be okay soon, I understand that you’re confused.”

Everything was confused, not just Castiel.

Blurred and stained and ticking like a fever dream.

He was so starving. So thirsty.

Feet clacking down the stairs felt so close, like they were on Castiel’s skull. He smelled blood and his fangs tried to extend further, snarls that he couldn’t hold back gurgled in his throat.

His naked body twisted towards it, fingers reaching while his wrists bruised in an effort to rise.

“You know, I was going to catch those two hunters that came in here a couple days ago; so you’d have something fresh for your first feed,” The door was opened and the scent grew stronger, “Wanted to see the looks on their handsome faces when I let you take ‘em to town- that woulda been great.”

He saw himself doing it. Killing the Winchesters like some animal. He could see the shock in their eyes, hear their choppy, wet cries as he tore their throats to pieces. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself.

His heartbeat echoed loud and rough. His captor’s was quiet but his was so desperate and crazed. 

“But they left too soon, so you’re stuck with my old friend A positive today,”

Castiel tried to close his mouth and withdraw his hungry teeth. He cut his tongue trying to push them back. He could see the blood bag and he was sure his insides were going to rip out of his body and absorb it.

He knew that as soon as it touched his lips he was gone,no way back. There would be no cure, no escape. He’d be a monster for the rest of his life.

The plastic was held over his gaping mouth.

One drop fell, a perfect, glistening sphere of blood.

The taste of it was orgasmic. And killing.

It stabbed him, hundreds of times, all over his body. Bled him dry. Filled him up with sludge and stones. Replaced his eyes with glass and his heart with a bag of leeches.

But the taste. The beautiful taste.

Madness roared out in his hissing, growling breaths and his wide and reddened eyes.

More manna spilled down and pooled on his tongue. Thick and sticky and salty and sweet beyond belief.

Castiel lurched towards it. His thoughts jumbled and tried to pull him back even though they knew he was gone already.

The blood trickled down his throat. He sucked on the on the bag when his captor pressed it to his lips.

His dead blood rushed through his veins, his heart beating stronger with every mouthful of scarlet he wolfed down.

His captor.

His captor was holding the bag.

Castiel was stronger. Castiel had sharp teeth.

Castiel’s eyes flashed in the searing light and a deeper growl tossed behind his tongue.

He could smell the rancid blood, the grime and sweat and stink of sex that hung onto the other without fault. It crawled on top of him like thick, filthy worms.

The source was close. Within reach.

Suddenly it threw itself closer, his rapist’s fingers right by his lips as they tried to tear the drained bag away from him.

An option.

A risk.

Ha.

Nothing was a risk anymore. What the hell did Castiel have to lose. What was his life worth now? His wings had been ripped out with his grace, humanity and mortality had left him for dead. He was a shell filled with monsters. Nobody would want him. No one would mourn, no one even knew he was here. His only friends had come and gone.

They hadn’t saved him and they could have. So easily, they could have saved him.

Taken him away.

He could have been safe and human.

Now he was shit smeared on the earth’s fine shoes.

The tears in Castiel’s eyes threw themselves out as the madness clicked and caught on Castiel’s breath.

He rocked his body forwards, his neck stretched out. His teeth tore the bag and sunk hard and fast into the fingers wrapped around it.

Rage sprayed with foul blood.

Hurt erupted, a fist cracked against his skull, but Castiel didn’t loosen his grip. He bit harder and deeper, the hands that had raped him and hurt him and destroyed him bleeding between his teeth.

Blows ricocheted off his skull and fingernails slashed at his skin and his eyes. Senseless roars tumbled all over.

Castiel tossed his head side to side, he felt the tendons snap as he did. Lukewarm blood was pouring down his chin and neck and chest, thick like tar. Soothing.

His glassy eyes were wide and staring at the monster’s fists, pupils nothing but specks that drilled and cursed.

Another tug, the fingers wedged in his throat. They tried to claw out. Like the angel hands in his nightmares. The corpses.

The corpses.

A second of loosened grip beckoned on a cracking punch to Castiel’s forehead. The skin there tore, dead blood splattered and pain flared; but no black spots marred his sight. He could still see and hear the other’s pain perfectly.

The screams were sweet.

Elation was burning through him like a wildfire.

The rapist’s weight crushed against him and bruised his insides, a knee hit Castiel hard between the legs. He didn’t even flinch.

The rest of the hand was caught in his teeth now, the fingers shredded with bones exposed. More hits landed on him, painting his skin with specks of blood from abused knuckles like crude finger-paintings.

_I’ve got you, you monster. You bastard. You stinking piece of shit._

He spat the mangled, twitching fingers and heard them hit the floor with quiet, wet slaps. He pinned what was left of the hand against his elbow, tugging the monster with it as he tried to hold Castiel in a chokehold and tug out his hair.

He spoke through his needle teeth and the flesh they were sunk in. “Let me go.”

“You cunt!” An elbow rammed against the back of Castiel’s neck. Screams followed and Castiel dragged his teeth along the veins. “You fucking cunt!”

“I’ll rip you to shreds you pathetic bastard-“ Castiel snarled slowly, his voice hissed through the mess. “You won’t be able to-“ Castiel felt tears start to hit his skin, screams turning to sobs above him. “You won’t be able to touch anyone again.”

Another roar sputtered out; chopped up in hurt.

“Untie me.”

“Let go of me!”

“Let me out” Castiel’s head was starting to spin in its crimson haze, the effort it took to hold the other draining what little of his energy the blood had replenished. Once the rush was gone, he’d be weak again and his only chance to get out would be gone.

He dragged his teeth up to the wrist now the hand was limp and lifeless. He sank his bite into the cartilage and opened the veins. Castiel’s arm was painted a heavy red.

The screams bubbling out were agonised, twisted up and tortured. Beautiful sounds.

"Fuck you-“ Pitiful words were spat out between coughed out sobs, the fist slamming into Castiel’s gut stopped and scrambled off him, over to his wrist.

Castiel’s chest lightened as a buckle was fumbled with and more cries were swallowed up.

Disbelief staggered his growling breaths.

The strap was untied.

The leather was loosened, the wretched skin underneath it stinging as stale air ghosted over it.

Castiel didn’t have time to tear up at the thought of freedom. He had to take it before it skulked back into the dark.

He swung his fist and it cracked against his captors skull. The shock made the other sway.

He grappled with the thick hair, twisted his teeth and ripped off the other’s hand.

The room pounded and pulsed in shades of black and red. The light sizzled against his empty eyes.

The leeches in Castiel’s heart squirmed and fattened, stretching the flesh they were gathered in. It could burst any second.

Everything moved fast.

He tore the other binding and bit his captors neck, pulled back and peeling off strips of skin. 

While the other toppled over and clutched at his wound, Castiel bent and tore the bindings by his feet. He stood and his bones felt ready to split at the pressure.

He, the new monster, threw himself over the monster that was not.

He was pushed off but the other was weaker and in pain. It was easy to get back on top.

He took a lunge at the bleeding throat, taking the windpipe and tugging.

More skin broke. More blood flowed. The screams gargled and slurred.

Another lunge and the screams were too weak to be called screams.

Another and there wasn’t a windpipe for screams to be forced out of.

With one more and the tight, ripping grip of both hands, the spinal cord snapped apart and the bone was separated.

The pounding room around him darkened and stirred. The rage and madness in pulsing in his veins was poisoned by the dead blood that filled his mouth and stomach.

Like chloroform it gripped him and held him tight, muddling already tangled thoughts and taking the lifeless energy from his body with each pulse of his ruptured heart. The sand in him grew heavy and wet with it, making his muscles too hard to tense and control.

His captors head rolled from his hands, mouth gaped in a scream with fangs bared and eyes wide open.

He saw it before the ground caught him in his collapse and the sight of it filled him with hollow joy.

_I’m free._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah this is late; like a month late. Sorry guys, I just had a lot of difficulty deciding on what to do with this chapter; It's kinda the decider as to how the story goes so I wanted to make sure this is definitely what I wanted to do with it. And it is. 
> 
> (and yeah, Castiel is just passed out at the end; dead man's blood tends to have that effect on vampires)


	8. Drift

Eyes exist to let the world in with their senses of sight, to perceive and to construct objects, people, places from pigments, from light.

Eyelids exist to hide these things. To protect the fragile surfaces, the fragile mind.

To keep them shut is tempting.

But foolish.

Thus as soon as Castiel could open his eyes, he did.

They burned in the harsh light that pulsed out of a bulb hanging tiredly by its rusted neck.  

The white receded (slightly) with time, and his boiling eyes were met with freezing ones.

Moisture had built up over the glass-like globes and sat there in an opaque slime. Drying spots of blood were clung to short eyelashes and clammy skin.

The pupils were wide, like holes opening up into the earth. Muddy brown blurred around them, the colour gone with the light.

The veins that reached around each pit resembled hands. Thin, cold, blue hands.

Castiel blinked and turned his eyes away from his captor’s. The rest of the face was pale and blood-streaked, oily and greyed in parts with half-dry sweat and old skin.

His lips were parted and the teeth behind them painted red to match the flooded mouth.  A tongue sat like a swollen sponge in the pool.  

It would never press up against Castiel’s flesh again, the lips would never twist into a smile or leak poison into Castiel’s ears. The teeth wouldn’t bite, the spit wouldn’t slick.

The eyes wouldn’t ever sit out of sight and rake over his body hungrily, digging into him while he struggled and cried and suffered.

With his head heavy like stone and divorced from his hateful body, the monster that had made Castiel wish for death was still and cold.

The joy circled inside him like the shadows of vultures.

The man was dead, Castiel may as well be.

Bitter blood smeared thick on Castiel’s lips was foul. His flesh stuck to the pools of more when he shifted to wipe it away. Even with the light shining bright as it was, the blood still looked black, the red glinting only vaguely through the dark of it.

Dead man’s blood. Poison. Everywhere.

It made Castiel slip when he tried to stand.

He moved carefully after that.

There was relief when he found the light switch and turned it off, but not for very long. Fears started to crowd and whisper.

His senses were starved, desperate to find something, anything.

The pipes were creaking, so was the building. Cars roared past on the other side of the ceiling.

The outside.

The joy came again with more shadows than before, circling closer and darker.

<i>You killed us </i>

Castiel flinched at the croak when it peeled past him from every direction. Enochian tangled with it too.

He had  to get to the outside. Away from the inside. Away from the inside of his head and the things that lurked there.

The locks weren’t locked, they were heavy and thick and rusted. He pulled them clumsily out, his fingernails, where he still had them, stabbed into his flesh like syringes whenever he bumped them against the metal.

<i>Murderer. Monster. Filth.</i>

He dropped it to the ground and watched the echo of the sound hit the false ones hard.

Castiel pushed open the door, which, like the locks, was heavy. On the inside it was rotting, insulation peeked through in parts.

He turned to face it again, to look into the dark.

His captors pale eyes met him. He felt fingers brush against him. Fear stabbed his throat quickly.

He blinked.

The eyes were gone.

He swung the door shut and it blended perfectly into the wall.

<i>Dean must have known, though. Knew something was off about it. Surely the blood smell leaked through.  Surely.</i>

Castiel’s fangs pried at his gums.

He was quick to clap a hand over his mouth and move quickly away.

The smell went with him, of course. Blood, semen, dirt, sweat, rot. He was caked in it, greasy with it. He would need to scrape it off.

<i>Scrape away the hurt. Wash away the memories. Scrub at the sickness built up on your skin until it’s gone, gone, gone. You won’t look like a monster when it’s all gone.</i>

He found a shower and stared at the tiles while the lukewarm, rusty water sprayed at him with violence. He just couldn’t get warm, his blood didn’t want to.  It repelled heat and his skin remained cold as stone; cold, but in no way numb.

 The water burned so much Castiel expected to see welts rise red and shiny under each drop.

No welts formed, of course. Castiel bit back the hurt and started to try and peel his torture away.

First  he bit at the remnants of his fingernails and pulled out the splinters. A few weaker nails came out too, hot water hit the beds and Castiel could swear he felt them cooking.

With quaking fingers, he rubbed his raw wrists until the dead skin was gone and fresher blood replaced the old.

 It still wasn’t quite <i>blood</i>, though. Still too cold and dark. He washed his hair and leant his face away from the water streaming out of it; he didn’t want to taste what made it stick together.

The water rolled and licked around his body,  Castiel guided it over his chest where it dug into the bruises and cuts scattered over it, then around his back here his bones were barely covered by his stretched skin. He hugged his sides, the pressure he put there made him sick in the stomach. It was too much like before, his hands didn’t feel like his hands, they felt like the dead man’s.

He heard the essence of a heavy breath and the shadow of footsteps.

Looking up, he saw again the eyes.

<i>Murderer</i>

Castiel stared into them a while before slowly, he drew the curtain between them and him.

He turned away from where they had been and didn’t dare to touch his sides again, lest his hands truly turn into the monsters.

Instead he sat, slowly and painfully, under the stream and pried open his legs. He had to bite back the urge to throw up as he let the water run down. It was the only way to wash away all those unwanted touches.

That didn’t stop it hurting, though. It made him want to scream every time the hot water strayed over the raw flesh under his dissolving scabs.

He was so raw. Cold and bloody like fresh meat.

Peeled apart with a mixture of hurt and fear and dread rolling off him with the steam.

It kept rolling as he stood, as he watched the water pooling by his toes and over his ruby red ankles.

A slow breath left his throat; it trembled with the rest of him.

The sound of running water was too good of a distraction to turn the taps off. The constant babble of it hushed the lesser whispers that scraped at his mind and made his insides shrivel and sag.

He kept the water flowing as he left the bathroom and drifted like a ghost through the apartment.

A cough spluttered from him in the dustiness of some of the rooms.

Instinct made him hush himself.

Flinches punctuated his footsteps, as did nervous flicks of his eyes. Instinct didn’t know that the threat was decomposing slowly below.

Castiel listened intently to the shower as he scavenged for clothes (all of which were too big) and for money.  He listened to the basement too. Just in case.

And then he walked, swiftly. Out. Towards the moonlight peeking through the windows and under the door. Towards sound. Air. Sights. Life.

Turning the doorknob made the shadowy joy in him swoop and tear at his chest.

Slamming it behind him made it croak and drag brittle feathers by his eyes, tempting tears.

Sound, air, sights and life toppled over him like avalanches.

The streetlamp lights felt like candles held close to his skin, their shadows cut across the vivid, pulsing blues and greys and piss-yellows of the street at night like blades formed of coal.

How many nights had passed?

The moon was blurry and bright behind the smog, bleeding silver out onto the dirty sidewalk and patchy road.  Both sheened as thought coated in a misty sweat. The suggestion of steam rose from manholes and gutters as though somewhere in the drains and sewers beneath the city, hell was waiting.

Castiel paced briskly down the sweaty road and away from the things in the gutters.

He heard people moving in darker corners, smelled a mixture of liquor and meth with their movements. Their heartbeats began to tick madly when they spotted him.

He moved faster.

The main road hit his ears like a jackhammer, violent sounds assaulting him from every angle; engines revved and roared like fires and earthquakes, horns clapped in the air to scare other cars away, ambulances wailed pleadingly to part the seas of metal so they could reach the dying before they died.

His eyes screwed up at the light and his brain tremored from the force of it all.

Everything like it was before. But sharper. Louder.

Castiel wanted to be thankful, to grin at the flawed perfection of the city and its gritty hustle and bustle. He wanted to feel the weight leave his chest. But it wouldn’t.

All there was inside him was dread.

He could still feel the addicts in the alley, but now hundreds stirred with them.

Smaller beats of tired children, fast beats of anxious workers, slurred beats of drunk drivers and friends passed out in backseats. Heartbeats upon heartbeats upon heartbeats clattered over each other like a thousand horses cantering together over stone.

His own beat quickened in a hollow way. His fangs were out, but his lips held stubbornly down as he breathed heavily to distract himself with the hollow rattling of his lungs.

He focussed on the landscape, on the foul stink of exhaust and trash.

The clattering hearts were still loud.

He needed to escape them.

Castiel’s vein laced eyes scanned the crowded cars for cab; he hailed it as he’d seen other humans do before.

The man inside had blood with a sweet scent and a healthy rhythm. Cheap, reeking air freshener hung about the car like drapes of gaudy colour, but it did nothing to drown out the driver.

“Where do you want to go?”

A thickly accented voice accompanied by fresh breath flirted with Castiel’s senses and his fangs pushed at his gums again when he climbed inside.

Castiel sat in the back and managed to force out the bunker’s address.

He knew that no good could come to him there, that he couldn’t hide what he was,  not for long; but he wasn’t cruel enough to leave himself out in the open where he might just slip and find his teeth in someone’s gushing neck.

He missed his driver’s attempt at conversation while he leant by the window with his hand firmly over his mouth and its starving fangs.  Castiel paid no attention to the changing scenery.

The vultures in Castiel’s chest were ripping him up from the inside out, most of his flesh was carrion, anyway.

Carrion. He felt like he was rotting inside, like his insides were turning to slop and his blood to tar.

They probably were.

Or at least, they would be.

They would be when the rest of him was rotting too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this, a month late or something? Maybe two? Probably; I honestly have no excuse for that, I was on holidays for the last 8 weeks so, yeah, i had heaps of time to update but didn't really- sorry guys. And as a future warning, I'm starting my last year of high school this year and I want to do well in it, so I'll be busy with school work and social things a lot of the time and keeping my fics up to date is not my priority. This one, however, it isn't /immensely/ far away from its ending, so I won't bother putting it on hiatus or anything like that; but don't expect updates as frequently as they came before. 
> 
> And, as always, comments are greatly appreciated, it's great to hear what you all think.
> 
> Also, if you have any ideas for more light-hearted one shots or anything, comment them and I might give writing them a a go; I really want to try something sweet or funny ((writing this fic kinda makes me want to write happier ones, you feel?))


	9. Stay

Had the light been shining and the weather been dry, dust would have caught and held the glow as it swirled in the wake of quick rolling tires. 

It was not, though. The moon made an effort, but a weak one in comparison to sunlight’s vicious waves. All the night glow did was give the slurry on the road a dull gleam of grey that flashed briefly to white when the taxi headlights slapped over.

The inner workings of the lights whirred and crackled; the engine roared. The tires scraped and the slushy, filthy water churned.

Castiel’s eyes drilled out into the dark and saw into it clear as day.

The beating of his hollow heartbeat resembled in sound the beating of great, heavy wings.

He dissected the echo like all the other sounds kicking his guts and screaming in his ears.

The man behind the wheel looked to his rear view mirror. 

“Is the air conditioning too cold sir?”

Castiel felt the driver’s eyes glaze over his drawn up, bony body.

He looked to them. They were warm and dark, tired. Red, hot, life-filled blood pulsed under the healthy brown skin around them; heated air slipped out between the driver’s shaped, smooth lips as he breathed calmly in and out.

Castiel’s body stung at the feeling of how human the other was.

His fangs stirred at his scent.

“Sir?”

Castiel blinked. He breathed out, cold air left him in a thin sheet.

“It’s alright.”

The driver was not convinced. 

“Are you sure? I can turn the heater on if you would like it.”

An owl hooted somewhere behind them and far to the west. In the sound, Castiel saw its feathers catch the moonlight and felt its tiny heart push blood through its light body.

“Really, it’s alright.” Castiel tried to remain focused on the owl as the taxi took him farther from it. 

Any further comments from the driver went unheard.

They didn’t talk until the taxi stopped further down the road by the side of a long abandoned power plant.

Castiel felt the currents of cool air that ran slowly over the dormant, solid slabs of concrete and brick. Their swirling and river like motion hypnotised and calmed him as he stepped out of the car and gave the driver money he had stolen from the monster that had turned him. He focused on the rivulets of breeze as exhaust fumes left a hot trail in the wet night air, he watched them wind over the dusty and life-void building and rustle over the short and sodden grass.

Insects crept between the blades. Their tiny feet left no footprints in the mud and made no sound. Castiel traced them into life by their living scents.

He breathed in.

The taxi was far away now. The grind of its wheels on the bitumen distant and distorted by the wind.

He breathed out.

Life ticked in the space beneath his feet; far under the concrete and the roots of the forest. A building underground holding a life or two and buzzing with electricity and heat.

Two lives exactly were encased by the concrete. Castiel could feel their quiet beats as he stood over them. Both slept, one sounder than the other. They were too well blanketed by stone for him to identify, the vein structure was vague with the rock in the way.

He felt one of them turn in their sleep, the heart beat shifting with the motion.

They were so tranquil and quiet.

_You should leave_

Castiel felt the thought squeeze at the back of his neck.

_Go away from here. You don’t belong._

Its hands were like pincers. They cut at his skin.

_They don’t want you. Death does._

Castiel looked away from the entrance to the bunker, up the pitch black road and in between the feet of the forest. There were animals skulking not too far away; wolves, coyotes, the odd bear. At least if Castiel went to them, he wouldn’t be useless. Meat is meat, no matter how cold and sparse it is on the bones.

He listened for animal footsteps in the distance, for growls and howls and crunching twigs, but he could hear nothing over the heartbeats below the earth.

_Just walk into the woods, something will find you soon enough._

Castiel could not compel himself to move, no matter the tightness of the thoughts on his throat.

His eyes flicked shut for a moment, an attempt to distance himself in some way from his body and the fragments of himself that lay threaded with warmth at the thought of seeing his friends again. The attempt was fruitless. 

Castiel finally moved.

He took few steps towards the door; the pincer grip extended down his spine and tried to pull him back. Down the shallow stairwell into the alcove the entrance was nestled in.

His bloodied knuckles rapped against the wood as harshly as he could force them to. They stung at the contact and the pincers squeezed again, snipping at his nerves. His body was numb.

Under his feet and in the guts of the bunker, a quiet tone resonated; like a doorbell.

One heartbeat changed in response to it; the one that had been restlessly asleep. With its motion came the violent need to run. 

But again, he found that movement was impossible, the pull away and the pull in tying him to where he stood.

The life under the concrete moved, the heartbeat changing when it stood and began to walk. Out of a room, down a hallway, up stairs, past columns that echoed its beat in rounded, lifeless ways. He could hear footsteps now, resounding softly as they tapped off stone; they were soft and rustled, gently dragged. Barefoot. Then breathing.

Castiel’s hands shifted to his sides, his chilled, sore fingers digging into the excess of his clothes, knotting in between them and pulling the fabric closer. His anxiety had worn down his skin and bone now, it rubbed against his tender nerves and gnawed. His numbness was universal, all he could feel was the pound of his heart and the tic of the one his senses were tracing.

A second stair case. A bigger room. Only a few metres away now. Castiel could feel its heat and smell a hint of the blood. It was a rich scent, but tinted sour by the remnants of whiskey which effects had long since worn away. He could guess which of the pair it was now, given the scent and sound of breath and blood. 

Dean Winchester was coming up the stairs.

The conflict in Castiel tore at him again. Past nightmares came back to memory and with them a fear of the other ebbed while at the same time, memories of the other brought hints of warmth and comfort. 

He didn’t know which feeling to act on.

_He threw you out. He turned away. He ignored you. He used you, so many times. He doesn’t want you._

Castiel wanted to claw at his skull to take the whispering fears away. His hands stayed tied to his weakly shivering sides.

“Who the hell...” Castiel flinched when he heard Dean mumble from some distance behind the door. The speech wound off to a yawn. He heard a handgun being loaded, too, but this came as no shock. Precaution is reasonable.

_Not that a handgun will do anything to hurt you. He’s defenseless._

Castiel bit at his lip and looked away from the door, eyes turned to the wet concrete. 

_What if you attack him, Castiel? What then?_

“I won’t.” He whispered to himself to hush the thought.

_What if you kill him?_

He shook his head and closed his eyes. A sick feeling crept up his throat and into his bones. 

The door opened.

Castiel snapped his head up, startled by the sound and the gush of warmth that flowed out from the frame of the door.

His eyes met those he’d seen only in nightmares since the day he was thrown away.

“Cas?”

Disbelief. Surprise. Confusion. Something that felt good, as well.

No disgust.

“Cas- what-” The door swung further open now, the Winchester no longer hiding behind it. He squinted out at the once angel, a strange mixture of feelings toying with his features. His green eyes darted over Castiel, piecing his tattered appearance together and sopping it up. “Are you okay?”

Castiel could feel Dean like he was a part of him. The heat radiating from the blood in his veins, the hushed bellows of his lungs drawing breath and pushing it out. the pounding of his heart and the occasional creak of his poorly rested joints. His skin looked almost golden in the soft yellow light, healthy and smooth where it showed. Real and right there, tangible. Not a cold, distant shape with a sneer painted on a marble face.

This was not the nightmare. 

Still, he could not bring himself to step closer.

Dean frowned, worry creasing a tired brow. There was nothing hidden in his face, it all stood out clear and simple in every tiny motion. “You look spooked-” Dean stepped out towards Castiel given that Castiel would not move himself, “Cas, is something wrong?”

Dean put his hand on Castiel’s back. His expression drew itself further in, his jaw twitched. “You’re freezing-”

Castiel looked up, Dean standing close to him now. 

His mask-like expression began to chip. 

Dean was worrying about him. Dean wasn’t suspicious or scared or angry at him for coming. 

The urge to run away loosened.

_You’re still dangerous to him. The only reason he isn’t trying to kill you is that he doesn’t know what you are._

Their eyes were locked together now, Dean trying to see something behind Castiel’s glazed stare. His hand moved to Castiel’s shoulder, squeezing it. 

Castiel tugged at his tendons to shift his own hands from their nesting place by his sides. His fingers slid up the fabric then split from it. He crossed his arms, rubbing at them as if to repel a chill. Dean’s eyes were drawn by the movement and something closer to fear flashed in them when they hit the wrists.

“Cas your wrists they’re-” A number of realisations stacked up and quarreled with each other in the Winchesters head, “What happened?”

Castiel couldn’t force the answer out of his lips. He just stared up at Dean with something like sadness pulling at his lips and welling up in his eyes. “Can I-” His voice was almost bloody in its rawness. “Can I stay with you?”

Dean was lost for a moment, his mouth opened as if to speak then closed again. His hand pulled back from Castiel’s shoulder.

_No you can’t. He’s not going to let you come in. He doesn’t want-_

Castiel’s body found itselfsuddenly surrounded firmly by Dean’s arms and the dissonant tongues that dripped poison in his mind all curled up and hid themselves away. The grip was tight, nearly crushing. Firm and warm and comforting and solid. Castiel’s face nestled in the crook of Dean’s neck, his cold breath muffled by the hot skin there. Veins roared by Castiel’s ears, but no want to puncture them broke into him. 

“I shouldn’t have ever let you go.”

_This is a trick this is a trick this is a trick the dream will turn sour the dream will turn sour it will turn sour._

Tears burned Castiel’s eyes when they forced themselves out. Crying rattled his body.

Dean held him tighter. Curled around him like a fortress.

A wanted touch after so many he loathed.

Castiel reached to touch him, to cling to him as his form trembled and cracked and shattered with the force of his sobs. The other stood fast, held him and pulled him close, saying nothing. Absorbing the crying.

_”I shouldn’t have ever let you go”_

Castiel’s senses all fluctuated and pulsed with his staggered breaths and broken sounds. His throat caved in with the force of it and the salty cold of his tears slipped down between his bloody lips, making wet again the scabs and staining the Winchester’s skin red. The bruises on him ached and stung where Dean touched him, but he didn’t try to pull away or escape the grip. 

He let his semi-deadness fall over Dean’s life, blurring up against it. His bones trembled, his knees gave away, his feeling all overflowed and ripped him up, but Dean didn’t let him fall. He didn’t let him go.

He stayed.

Castiel could feel him. Castiel could hold him. Castiel could warm at his touch.

Dean let him cling. Let him hold. Let him feel.

Dean let Castiel stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO. LATE. UGH. I'M A HORRIBLE PERSON.
> 
> I'm so sorry guys, I'm so shit with updating constantly. I've been crazily busy with god only knows how many exams and assignments and folios and blegh, grade 12 is actually killing me I think. I'm so keen to graduate and get it all over and done with though, then I'll actually have time to do the things I like so that'll be rad.
> 
> ANYWAYS I know in my description I said i wasn't gonna update for another 2 weeks or so, but I got this written one afternoon and decided that keeping it from you guys was kinda pointless so- voila- new chapter. 
> 
> As always, leave a comment f you liked it or want to ask me something or just talk or something; I love hearing from you guys c:
> 
> (((sidenote; anybody going to the All Hell Breaks Loose supernatural con in Sydney this May? Just asking out interest because I'm so friggin excited i may actually burst into flames)))


	10. Lie

Roughly an hour had passed since Castiel had returned to the bunker, not that Castiel could truly sense the passing of the time.

Disbelief and warmth numbed him. The unfamiliarity of familiarity deafening in its presence.

He was curled on the sofa, buried under blankets that did nothing to heat him as he lay there blowing cold air chilled by the cold blood in his cold lungs from his cold lips. The wool pressed down on his form and surrounded it softly. It rose when he breathed in, sank when he breathed out. He kept his eyes half closed in what Dean believed was tiredness and what was, in fact, an effort to shield them from the lights.

Dean had guided him in, had practically carried him down the stairs before laying him on the couch, rushing to gather the blankets. Castiel had listened to his anxious heartbeat as he’d shuffled around the bunker with haste. He’d heard each mumbled, worried word distorted slightly by the curvature of the halls and the angularity of the rooms. He had traced the sounds of his bare feet squeaking over the tiles with great care, followed them in his thoughts like he was afraid they would turn to the footsteps of the monster if he let them fall from his focus.

He had arrived, tucked him in the blankets with mumbled assurances and shuffled swiftly off again to get something else.

The footsteps came full circle, Castiel’s empty heartbeat synced to Dean’s as he walked into the library and up to the sofa. 

“Hey-” The softness of Dean’s voice pulled Castiel’s mind away from the rich, rusty smell of his hot blood. “How’s the couch?”

Castiel opened his eyes a slither, the light rubbed at them like sandpaper but he didn’t close them. There was worse pain elsewhere in his body to distract him. He’d grow used to the light eventually. “Soft.” His voice barely made a dash on the air, and he couldn’t help but feel that it was unwelcome there.

Dean was crouched a foot or so away from him; close enough that Castiel could feel the vibrations of his blood as it pumped through his network of veins and arteries without fault. “Getting warmer?” His expression, while solid, did not lack caring. Castiel suspected he was keeping it firm on purpose, maintaining an illusion of calmness and control to keep Castiel from soaking up more anxiety than he needed to have.

The nod Castiel gave was a lie.

Dean didn’t know so his lips curved at the corners, the soft skin by the corners of his eyes creasing into crows feet. 

What was that expression?

Castiel’s eyes drilled into Dean’s lips.

A smile.

An “it’s going to be okay” kind of smile.

Castiel hadn’t seen one for so long that he’d forgotten what they looked like.

Dean moved, the smile faded as his eyes moved too. Castiel missed it. “Can you stick your hands out?” Dean picked something up from the tiles*; a tendril of disinfectant smell and sterility curled by Castiel’s face. “They’ll get infected if i don’t patch ‘em up.”

Castiel’s fingers flinched in; raw and splinter speckled fingernail beds injecting a shivering pain into his marrow as they brushed against dry and cracked palms. His gaze didn’t shift as he extracted them from the blankets, locked in place.

He felt another flicker of hurt; a scared hurt as Dean went to take one of his hands. Surely he would notice how cold his hands were still, how the blood looked different and smelled different; treacly and dark and completely void of heat. 

He didn’t.

With caution, gently callused fingertips bumped up against icy palms. They pressed and slipped over; green eyes trailed down to follow them and focus on fingers and bleeding wrists. They left lines of flushed heat in their wake as they inspected the flesh; as Dean leaned closer and furrowed his brow at the messiness of what he was touching so gingerly.

His felt so different to the dead monster’s touch. 

Castiel’s eyes stitched onto the sides of Dean’s as they looked carefully at him and veiled expressions of repulsion and worry. He watched the whites that wrapped the greens as the greens watched the bruises and splinters. The white was muted; veined with implicit reds and pink veins borne of restless sleep and too much whiskey. It wasn’t the sterile white from the nightmares, the angel light. 

A small twist of nausea with that thought.

“This is gonna sting.”

Castiel didn’t flinch or hiss. Antiseptic soaked gauze Dean poked into his wrists burned the flesh there, but it failed to match the stinging and searing Castiel had grown so familiar with in his time spent locked away. It didn’t peel like the straps that had held him and it didn’t rip like the rapist’s cock inside him.

The cock inside him.

Under the blankets Castiel’s legs pressed together tight. The still raw skin between them ached. For a moment he felt the thick fingers dragging along his thighs. For a moment he felt the fingernails digging into his skin. For a moment he smelt the hot, rotten breath rolling over him.

Rolling over him.

Blankets over him.

Dean looking over him.

A breath he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding slipped from his lips and the memories beginning to squirm in his meat like maggots retreated back into his guts. 

This place wasn’t bad like that place had been.

This place was safe.

His muscles loosened; he relaxed, sinking just a fraction down and clinging to the bunker with every sense save sight.

The electric lights whirred relentlessly, droning on and on like a sun-dazed swarm of bees inside a hive; water rushed through pipes, sounding like herds of wild horses cantering up and over hills. Vents breathed. 

Down the hall, behind a door in a bare bedroom, Sam’s form, fast asleep, was painted by the heat of his veins; the steady bloodflow like rows of fireflies inside him, lighting him up from the inside out. Dean had yet to wake him.

Dean. Dean was loudest, realest and closest. Again, like a part of him. Completely overpowering but not overwhelming. There. Steadfast.

The gauze pulled back, that or Castiel stopped feeling the sting. He wasn’t sure until the sting moved. He shuddered deeply and flinched when a splinter was tugged from where it lay wedged in the end of his thumb.

“Sorry-that hurt, didn’t it?”

Castiel gave a small shake of the head. He pressed his face back into the blankets and twitched his hand in Dean’s as the other went back to his task

He didn’t flinch again

He was far too busy focusing on everything else to shove at the memories each tug and pinch dredged up.

Dean pulled a splinter.

Castiel remembered it being put there.

_Clawing at the chair. Shaking it. Splinters like glass shards. Glass. The water glass. What he did to me when i made him drop the water glass- what he did- what he-_

“No.” His voice got lost in the blankets that he pressed his face into. His lips drew into a tight line. 

He felt suffocated again. Plugged up. Tasting it. The bodies in his throat.

_It’s not there. It’s not there. It’s not there._

Listening and feeling the safety around him wasn’t enough. It didn’t block the bad out, no matter how hard he tried. 

Breathing through a throat tightening around rotten arms and legs that weren’t there, Castiel opened his eyes into the blanket. His dead blood was pounding in his ears.

“Cas-?” Dean’s voice caught Castiel by surprise. he snapped his head up to catch where it had some from.

Castiel froze.

His eyes did not meet Dean’s. They didn’t meet soft tan skin, freckles like dirt specs.

Glassy eyes.

Cold blue empty eyes like cold blue empty fog. Sunken in dark holes in a clammy face cracked with angry red lines. Flesh moving like clay under a lazy hand.

“NO!” Castiel flung himself backwards as the scream ripped out. He kicked a now shaking leg and drove it into the man’s chest, feeling the force split up chalky bones. He didn’t notice the heat, his eyes were too stuck to the muddy blood pouring from the dead man’s neck and oozing down his chest. 

“F-fuck-” Dean’s voice sputtered airless from the corpse’s swollen, fang torn lips. He curled. Castiel scrambled faster as the head slipped from the severed neck and hit the floor with a thump that made teh air jitter.”What the hell, Cas-?”

Every nerve in Castiel’s body leapt and fell and tumbled down inside him. He arched and swerved his form away. The dead man picked up his head and pushed it towards him.

The back of the sofa fell away from him. The floor crashed up to Castiel and clapped a dark flash over his eyes. Papery skin on his forehead broke. Cold blood smudged the wood. Fangs pried at his gums when fingers wrapped around his ankle. 

He kicked the touch away. “GET OFF OF ME” His voice broke like dropped ice. Another kick hit glass and shattered it across the floor. A harsh chemical reek engulfed the air with violence andCastiel choked on it, tasting it like a thousand syringes all stabbing into his tongue. 

“GET-” His hands swung blindly backwards, Castiel refusing to open his eyes again for fear of what rotting corpse he would see, “GET AWAY FROM ME”

The raw sound of his scream ran like a panicked animal through the halls and up the walls.

The hand came to his shoulder. He pulled back, falling. His hair hit something wet. 

_his blood ___

__A form above him. He felt the heartbeat. His fangs split the gums as his arms flung to cover them. “PLEASE-”_ _

__“LOOK AT ME!” Dean shouted at him through the dead man’s lips._ _

__Castiel shook his head and curled back into the hardwood beneath his body. He whined as a beaten dog whines._ _

__“Cas- look at me!” Fingers pushed one arm away. Castiel forced his mouth to snap shut- the fangs cut into his mouth and drew blood that tasted of rotten fruit. “Whatever you saw- it’s not real. I’m me. I’m Dean.”_ _

__The tight grip on his shoulder loosened to a soft one._ _

__The fingers were thinner._ _

__Warm._ _

__“Just- try looking. Just for a second- come on-” His voice was fine fibred, coaxing him to calm as the hands slipped to Castiel’s arm’s in front of his eyes. They moved slowly, almost stinging in how hot they were, “I promise I’m me.”_ _

__Castiel could barely hear him over his hornet’s nest heartbeat. Every dead bloodcell in him was rushing and buzzing in his tired veins. His wounds all ached and pulsed in fear of more hurt. The image of the headless monster stayed in negative colours on the back of his lids. The dead eyes staring him down with blacks where whites should be._ _

__He couldn’t get away._ _

__“Please”_ _

__Castiel screwed up his eyelids to try to wipe the face away. It stuck._ _

__Seeing it there was worse than knowing it was in front of him, worse than seeing it._ _

__Castiel’s breath shook as he let his arm be pushed away from his eyes. The light lit his vision in red through the veil of his monster plagued eyelids. Castiel forced them to open._ _

__Dean’s face. Not the monster._ _

__Defined. Scared. Gentle. Rough. Tired. Alive._ _

___Dean._ _ _

__Relief hit Castiel hard enough to force tears out of his eyes and a sob from his throat._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woah okay this was late. like holy f*ck. Sorry. This has been sitting half written on my laptop for a millenia and i’ve been totally lost with it- mainly it’s because it’s a sort of ‘in between’ chapter, and trying to make 'in between' chapters worth reading is hard, bruh. Both of my main fics are stuck on in between chapters which is kinda why i haven’t been updating. That and school has been stressing me out to the point where i have no motivation to do anything and have no energy. I hate grade 12.
> 
> That considered, i really don’t have that much time for stuff outside of school so getting this done with relative frequency is a mammoth of a task and I don’t think i can handle it, not now at any rate. I will keep updating [and this fanfic is pretty well planned and everything, it won’t have that much more to go before it finishes], but it may turn into a once-a-month-or-less type affair. I really really want to finish this f*cker, i hate not finishing things and i like this fic and i know you guys do too.
> 
> As always, leave a comment if you loved it/noticed any mistakes or have any questions <3
> 
> ~Casjuice out.


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